


Such a pilgrimage were sweet

by Caritas_Lavellan



Series: Earth Mind [4]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Epilogue to Not that kind of wolf, F/M, Fluff, Post-Game Analysis, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-12
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-08-30 11:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8531269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caritas_Lavellan/pseuds/Caritas_Lavellan
Summary: Virla finally gets some answers as to what on earth was going on in Solas’ mind.Contains spoilers for earlier parts of Earth Mind, but should also help them make more sense. Dedicated to all those sucked in to the vortex of bafflement that is my Solavellan headcanon.





	1. The tide rises

**Author's Note:**

> This story happens immediately after the end of the last chapter of [Not that kind of wolf](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/11178601), and you may like to read Chapters 43 to 64 of that before this. There will be another part (not yet started) covering what happens to Solas during Chapters 61 to 64, which I'll put before this in the series, but this story contains no particular spoilers for that beyond what's already in [Not that kind of wolf](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/11178601). There is a sequel which follows directly from this, [Roses and Daisies](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9877802/chapters/22156754), and there may also be further sequels in due course.
> 
> The title comes from John Donne’s [Go and Catch a Falling Star](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44127), which also features in Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. Lecherysweet wrote a fun crossover: [Fen’Harel’s Travelling Eluvian](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5938339/chapters/13654810). If you want to puzzle out what’s going on in the Earth Mind series yourself, read that instead of this. (Or read it anyway, it's great.)
> 
> Ok, enough warnings about spoilers. To the cavern beneath the Frostbacks!

Virlath Al’var Lavellan – known to herself as Virla – groaned, her huge and azure dragon body twisting uncomfortably on the stone tiled floor. It seemed entirely in keeping with their history, that before she could even coax a single answer from him, circumstances intervened.

Solas stood beside her, the incongruously warm smile on his face fading into sympathetic focus. Like her, he was a healer and a soldier. His eyes ran over scales and wings and tail. “Where does it hurt?”

She blinked huge silver eyes, tears swimming in them as pain bloomed across her body. “I think…”

He was already reaching through her aura, the power of his magic almost overwhelming. His eyes widened, and the sympathy across his face turned into shock. He met her eyes. He didn’t need to speak.

She knew he knew.

He managed – barely – not to step back. He pinched his nose as if he had a headache; took a breath.

She could almost see the speed at which he thought as he sank to his knees, hands pressing delicately along her abdomen: the scents, the memories he pulled into his mind. After a minute of desperate examination, he stood up again and walked round to her head, sitting down where she could see him.

“This is why you stayed a dragon,” he said, still speaking in Draconic. She saw through veils of tears that he was smiling; felt relief. “How did you know… no, never mind. The time for explanations can come later. Have you shifted shape at all since you flew back through the great eluvian?”

“Only in the Fade,” said Virla. “When I slept I was an elf again. Solas, Solas, what will happen?”

She lifted up her head and screamed in pain and terror. The relief she’d felt to see him, to be back on land, had all evaporated. When she lowered her head, she found him on his feet. He put his arms around her neck, as far as he could reach, and laid his head against her scaly cheek.

“ _Vhenan,_ please trust me,” he said. “On this, at least, please trust me. I have assisted dragons…”

She breathed out steam and whimpered, snarling: “You said your wife had died in childbirth!”

The arms around her neck tightened: thin comfort. “When did I say that I had had a wife?”

“The story you told Varric, about a fisherman whose wife had died. Who went on living.”

His voice was soft: “A metaphor, _vhenan._ The world I knew was gone. I never married.”

“You never married,” she repeated, puzzled. “I thought… that you were bound to Mythal.”

“Not in that way.” His voice was muffled up against her scales. She thought he sounded close to tears as well. “I will do my best to explain. If you desire to listen.”

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted, Solas. Trust me. Tell me what your life has been, and I will let you help me.”

He nodded, and extricated his arms, glancing down towards her belly. “You’ll need to clutch your eggs quite soon,” he said. “It’s warm here, that is good. It ought to be less painful than... than if you were an elf.”

“When they hatch, what’s…”

“What’s in them?” he completed, and she nodded. “Well, that depends.”

The pain was building up again, and so was rage: “That’s not a helpful answer!”

“The eggs – they must be hatched within the Fade,” he said. “The spirits in them will be malleable. You could leave them in the Fade to grow, or bring them out into the world to grow as elvhen. Or combine them with their memories, to reincarnate them as they were. Abelas, for example.”

She frowned, large eyes narrowing. “I thought Abelas was dead.”

Solas chuckled. “You were the one who wanted to put things back the way they were. Effective…”

“…immortality,” she whispered, with a puff of frost. “How do we decide?”

“You will have time to think about it. At least three months from laying the clutch to when the earliest of them could hatch.”

Suddenly three months seemed no time at all, and she felt dizzy. To have the power of life and death – if Solas were telling the truth… to guide those who walked the paths beyond the Veil...

Her eyes ran over the geysers and the molten lava deep within the caves, imagining the elvhen coming back to life. The warmth within these caves was stifling, and she hadn’t noticed. Too tired, and too much in pain. Yawning, she realized he had said something, and she hadn’t heard.

“Solas, could you repeat that? Please?”

His hands were behind his back, a familiar pose: controlled; and a blush crept up his neck. “Would you like me to stay with you? For those months, I mean, until they hatch.”

_They are his children too. Of course he wants to stay and see them safe._

“Yes. I think you should,” she said in a rush, the words escaping on a long hiss. Her eyes were closing.

“We can leave the eggs sealed safely in the City,” he explained. “I could live wherever you decide.”

“Don’t you want to watch over them?”

“You are more important,” he said, looking up and meeting her eyes. He appeared sincere. “Once you’ve clutched them, you can safely shift back to an elf. I thought that we might… talk.”

She let out a sleepy laugh, which rebounded around the cave. “You thought that we might… talk?”

His lips twitched. “I suspect you have questions.”

“Only if you have the answers.”

“I will endeavour to… satisfy you in any way you wish,” he said, blushing further, but still not breaking eye contact. “Words may be inadequate.”

Her gaze softened, and she bent her neck until she could whisper in his ear: “I love you, Solas.”

She could see the tiny tears filling his eyes, as he rested his head against her large scaled cheek, just in front of her right eye. “I love you too,” he whispered.

And as she drifted off to sleep, she heard him add: “I even sometimes think that I deserve you.”

****

She stood within the city she’d created, its silver birch trees glittering outside her window, pale against an azure sky. Leaning on the sill, she looked down into squares with fountains; bridges over shallow rivers; and across to where she’d built his mausoleum. Thought beckoned, and for a while she could enjoy her thoughts in peace. And then, a welcome joining.

“It’s beautiful, _vhenan._ The Blight is gone. The Fade’s no longer fractured.”

His voice came from behind her, not too close to frighten her, and full of wonder.

“I didn’t stop to appreciate it, earlier,” he continued, walking up to stand beside her and look out. “I was worried that I might be trapped. Then I saw the eluvian, and saw there was a _vir_ back to my Virlath.”

“The one with Sera’s writing on it?”

“Inky HAS friends, elfy,” he quoted, gripping the window sill tightly enough to make his knuckles white.

“Still needs you,” said Virla, completing it. She placed her left hand on the back of his right one.

His lips twisted wryly, as he stiffened. “You still… don’t know that much about me.”

“I expected to be married to an older mage, a Keeper of some other clan. I wouldn’t know them either.”

“Do you want to change the Dalish ways?”

She laughed. “You’re changing the subject.”

“Yes. I’m sorry. I will find it hard to change my habits. Trust does not come easily to me. Though I am not feigning interest. Your decisions shaped the world. They could still continue to do so.”

“Your decisions shaped the world far more fully,” said Virla, then shook her head. “Not a competition, is it?”

Solas’ eyes were lit with love, as he lifted their joined hands up to his lips, and kissed the back of hers. For the first time since she’d taken Mythal’s soul, she felt a frisson of excitement shiver down her spine.

“I hope that you will always fail to see it so,” he said. “I am tired of fighting.”

“What is it like, being you?”

He paused, to think. She could tell he wanted to withdraw his hands, to keep them safe behind his back, so she let him do so. Then she grinned and hugged him around the waist, laughing up at him.

“That was a rhetorical question, Solas. I know that every answer you could give me now would be some kind of oversimplification. It will be my life’s work to appreciate you. Understand you.”

“Everyone is complicated,” he pointed out. “Not just me.”

“Not all demons are the same?” she teased.

“I am not a demon!” he said, outraged. Then he swallowed, hard. “You… don’t believe I am a demon.”

She rested her head against his chest, and smiled to herself. “No. I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“If I said it would be too much effort, would you believe me?”

“Most likely not.”

“It’s all probabilities, isn’t it?” She laughed. “I know you’re not a desire demon, since I don’t find you unbearably attractive. Very handsome, yes. But I find I can prevent myself from kissing you.”

His arms tightened around her. “You think I’m handsome?”

“You know I do. You’re the one who watched me in my dreams for months, making love to some…one that was shaped to look like you. I kissed you first, remember? I spent half a year upon my knees…”

“Not the entire half a year,” he objected. “For the allotted sacred time each day.”

“Can you remember it?”

“Vividly. Both sides.”

His voice was low, with honeyed warmth, and she shivered again. Preventing herself was getting harder.

Although she waited for him, he stayed silent, thinking. Virla remembered how he’d wept beside the bed – _our bed –_ when he had been restored from being Tranquil. “What is it like? Remembering? Are you changed from when you were first restored, from just before we left Aratishan?”

“I wept because I knew the Nightmare would attack me,” he said, his hand creeping up to smooth her hair and hold her head against his chest. “It was in my mind, and had been all the time. As long as it embodied fear, I knew that I could harden my whole heart against it.”

“You accepted that Blight was inevitable.”

“Yes. I trained myself to look upon my deepest fears and conquer them.”

“It had your tombstone. Dying alone.”

“I was apart from myself, then. That is true no longer. The fresco runes you saw: they gave me hope.”

“I don’t understand,” said Virla. The thumb of the hand that held her was stroking behind her ear; she looked up and saw a fleeting anguish cross his face. She frowned. “Are you all right to talk about this?”

“I don’t know if you’ll ever understand,” he admitted, staring out into the Silver City. “I am not entirely convinced that I have mastered it myself,” he added, before falling silent again.

“Why don’t we sit down in that large armchair over there, and you can hold me?” she said, eventually.

He nodded, sweeping her up into his arms and carrying her across the room. The armchair was a comfortable green velvet. “This one must be mine,” she said. “It’s the one that Varric has in Kirkwall.”  

“Everything is yours,” he said, settling her on his lap, her head against his shoulder, legs tucked up. She realized they were dressed in Inquisition robes: warmly familiar, down to the gleaming silver buttons and the braiding. “Everything that features in this City. You are an artist, _vhenan._ It is magnificent.”

She shook her head, denying the compliment, and his lips thinned. “You are too modest.”

“I am wary of pride,” she retorted. “It ought to have some imperfections. Wasn’t that the point?”

He pointed to the threadbare patches on the arms of the chair. “It has imperfections. So do I.”

“And one of those is never answering a question directly. Can’t you just tell me a quick version?”

She glared at him, winning a smirk. “So impatient, _da’len_.”

“I’m pregnant. Apparently that causes mood swings.” He laid a hand upon her belly, and she batted it away. “Not here. In dragon world.”

“If I tried to flirt with you there, there is a risk that you’d set fire to my robes.”

“This is flirting?”

“This is flirting,” he agreed, straight-faced. “I would never dare flirt with a dragon.”

He laid the hand on her belly again, and she sighed. “I can’t believe I’m pregnant. With dragon eggs.”

“You are taking this remarkably calmly,” he pointed out. “I am impressed. And therefore…”

He’d turned his head to hers and nudged their foreheads close together. Close enough to kiss, and she was finding it harder and harder to resist the urge. “And therefore?” she echoed.

“And therefore, I will tell you a vastly simplified version of what happened. Naturally I would prefer to tell it all in full, and not thereby run the risk of missing out a crucial detail, but…”

She couldn’t resist any longer, with his lips so close. Whatever he’d been going to say, she swallowed in a passionate kiss. His body shuddered violently, as she wreathed her hands around his neck and stroked behind his ears, as he had done with her. His lips were warm and sweet, and she could see their heartbeats echoed in the Fade around them, sunlight dappling on the silver trees, and singing birds.

Eventually, she broke off, smiling up at him with reddened lips: “It is really you. It really is.”

“It is really me,” he agreed, his blue eyes shining with relief. “Take my hand, and I will tell you why.”

“A vastly simplified version?”

He smiled, and squeezed the hand she offered. “A vastly simplified version.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DA nerds will note that the "dragon world" setting can be explored in Dragon Age: Origins. It’s the section up to the Warden finding Father Kolgrim, before the Gauntlet to the Urn of Sacred Ashes. Features include elven architecture and sun mosaics, tiled floors half-covered by cooled lava flow, dragon eggs, steaming pools and geysers. Leliana comments on the lava if she’s in your party during this section. In a codex on Fereldan Geography, Brother Genitivi noted that Lake Calenhad to the east is a huge caldera filled by the runoff of glaciers from nearby mountains.


	2. The tide falls

The room was calm and peaceful, an upper room in a house that felt like hers. Familiar paintings hung around the walls – images of forests, rivers, mountains – and Virla hoped that, here, they would be safe from danger, and from interruption. It didn’t feel unnaturally quiet. The perplexing city sprawled around, with towers and trees and birds and ancient spirits; the happy buzz outside was more reassuring than silence would have been.

She looked at where her hand lay intertwined with his, and laid her head against his shoulder, ready to listen.

“I tried to do this once before,” said Solas, after a short pause. “Unsuccessfully. You probably know when.”

“At Crestwood, when you took my vallaslin and left me?”

He nodded, closing his eyes briefly. “Yes. I am sorry again for causing you pain. Had I known that I would not manage to explain, I never would have taken you from Skyhold. How long had you had those vallaslin?”

The apparent non-sequitur made her look up in surprise. “My vallaslin? A couple of years, no more. I felt the loss of you far more than I felt the loss of them. My hair stayed red in the Fade, after I dyed it, and even when you took it I still had my arm, but I never saw the vallaslin again. I knew you’d told the truth about their purpose.”

“Why did you believe me when I said that they were slave markings? Before I used the spell to take them.”

There was a point to this, she knew. “It’s hard to remember. We had been to the Temple of Mythal. I had seen how you reacted to the elves there. You might be speaking from direct experience. You had no reason to lie.”

“Memory is fickle, even those events which leave a strong impression. If you guessed that I was withholding information, why didn’t you challenge me? Why not ask me how I knew? You must have seen my agitation.”

“I was confused as well,” she admitted. “I wanted to believe you. I certainly believed you loved me.”

“I did. I do. Remember that confusion. Both of us were scared, uncertain. Age does not make one immune to error.” He took a breath, murmuring: “I will try not to be selfish. The difficulty with proceeding chronologically is that it tends to emphasise the differences between us, not the similarities. Ask me how old I am, _vhenan._ ”

“How old are you, Solas?”

“How do you define a person’s age?”

“Most people would define it as the number of years elapsed since they were born,” said Virla, sensing a trick.

He chuckled. “Excellent evasion, _emma lath_. And how do most people define being born? How old is Cole?”

“He appears to be a human man in his early twenties. But he took this form five or six years ago.”

“So is he five or six, or twenty-one? Or is he far, far older? From what reflections of compassion did he form?”

“I don’t know,” said Virla, leaning her head back against the green velvet of the armchair where it protuded from its back, the better to contemplate him. “We don’t treat him like he’s five or six. Will he grow old and die?”

“Most likely,” said Solas, his right hand stroking hers as she sighed in regret. “That does not mean that you were wrong about him. If he manages to maintain his nature, more spirits of compassion may form as reflections of his actions, and of any others he inspires to kindness. Which is better: one Compassion, or the chance of many?”

“But if he had remained a spirit, he might not have to die,” said Virla, frowning. “Which was better for him?”

“He might have died. Many spirits have. That was not the reason that I wanted him to remain a spirit. Had you not disrupted my plans, he would certainly have died if he became a human, while as a spirit I would have had a chance to protect him. With the Fade restored, that argument is no longer valid, and the options are more finely balanced. Ideally it would not be your choice to make, but his. If it were mine, now, I might choose as you did.”

She nodded, reassured as much by his seriousness as by his words. Then she frowned at his elusivity: he’d gone off on another tangent. “Enough on Cole. Let’s talk about you. How would you define how old you are?”

“As the number of years elapsed since I was born,” he began, chuckling again. Then, as she rolled her eyes at him, continued: “but my births have not all been what most people you have lived with would call “natural”.”

“Births?”

“I am, or was, a host of different people. This is the other difficulty with proceeding chronologically.”

“You said you were Solas first, before being Fen’Harel. You said you were born in a village to the north.”

“I spoke truly. That is part of the simplified version. Before Arlathan was founded, around ten thousand years ago, there was an elf called Solas. His body looked like this one, more or less. A bit younger, perhaps, with fewer scars, and dark brown hair, worn long and braided back.”

It was silly that her heart beat faster as she listened to these mysteries. Surely after all that she had been through, she would find this kind of intimacy easy. But it wasn’t. “I find that hard to imagine,” said Virla.

His left arm tightened around her waist, and he raised a dark brown eyebrow. “I would not have listed lack of imagination as a fault in you, _vhenan,_ ” he chided her. “Maybe this will assist you.”

She blinked, and he had long brown hair. “The braiding is quite intricate,” she managed. “It really suits you.”

“Imagine a young man as vain of it as Dorian of his moustache,” sighed Solas, though he _did_ look pleased.

“Cole never seems to notice his untidy hair,” said Virla, unlinking their hands so that she could tease a single braid out to inspect its weight and texture. _So very handsome._ “You were really an elf then? You had parents?”

“I was brought up by my village, or at least… that is what those memories suggest. Like you, I don’t remember any parents, and my village did not talk about them. It was not until much later that I realised it was possible that I had manifested from the Fade, a reflection of the growing pride the elves felt in their culture.”

“Like Cole did as an adult human?”

“Yes, but probably much younger. There was no Veil, remember. Spirits were as common as trees in a forest.”

“Why did you shave your hair?” she asked, wondering if she dared unravel the braid she held.

“There was little to interest a young man in my village, but unlike you I did not have to leave. As Solas contemplated what he should do with his life – elves were not immortal then – he attracted the attention of a Great One. A Titan, as the Children of the Stone would say. It told him of the wonders it had built below the ground. It told him it had built the Fade.”

Her fingers stopped fiddling with his hair. “It had built the Fade? The Fade did not always exist, then?” 

“Small Fades of individual dreams and memories have existed as long as people have. What the Titans did was manage to connect them. They were the first Dreamers, able to walk into other people’s dreams.”

“How did they do that?”

“Quantum entanglement is the term, I believe.” His hand reached up and removed hers from his hair; his face suddenly sombre. When he spoke again, his voice held an edge of sarcasm: “Or so Caritas told _me_.”

Virla would have leapt up, but he held on to her hand. “I had to keep her a secret! I never lied!”

A sad smile played about his lips. “It is understandable, _vhenan._ Indeed I would not want you to feel that you must tell me everything; it is your choice. Accusing you of lying would be hypocritical.”

“Extremely so,” she said, clamping down on the fear. His aura held only gentle sorrow. _He’s not going to hurt you over this_. “How did you speak to her? Did you read my mind to find her? What is quantum entanglement?”

“I did not read your mind. Though it was through you she found me, taking the form of Hanal’ghilan in your Fade when we were at Aratishan. Without her we would not be here. May I return and tell that later?”

“I should let you tell the story,” said Virla. “What happened with you – with Solas – and the Titan?”

“Observing Solas’ friendships with spirits, the Great One called him Falon’Din. It offered him a bargain.”

 _Of course he was. Of course it did._ “Which he took.”

“One of my many mistakes. He was led astray by his prideful nature, thinking he was smart enough to best it.”

“It sounds like Pride as well, if that was the form of its temptation to him.”

“The categories were far more fluid then, but you are correct, there was a similarity between us. In time, it led to war. A war which Mythal initially averted. Did you see, within Vir Dirthara, a book I marked, about a duel?”

“The Duel of a Hundred Years, between the champions of Falon’Din and Elgar’nan,” she recited, dutifully.

He nodded, and suddenly his head was shaven again. “Elgar’nan was the Eldest Titan, the eldest of the Sun and Stone. His champion was dressed in gold, and Falon’Din’s in black. They wore full iron armour: helms and plate.”

“Did the duel really take a hundred years?”

“No.” He shrugged. “Long, but not that long. We were a people much given to exaggeration. It was for control of the next hundred years. The Eldest of the Sun had offered the elves the same immortality it said its people had. That was the nature of its bargain with Falon’Din. It appeared to the elves in the form of a burning dragon.”

“The dwarves fear the sun because of Elgar’nan’s fire,” said Virla, slowly. “Surely Solas suspected a trap?”

“He knew it was a trap. Before the bargain was proposed, he had met another being. It had taken the form of an elf, shaped to look like himself. From it he learned of endless slavery below the earth, the mindless slaughter.”

“He agreed to help it escape?”

Solas – she would have to call him that – shook his head. “No.”

Her eyes widened. “No? I thought you hated slavery.”

“Its slavery ran so deep that it could not even formulate what it meant to be free. A mindless, soulless drone.”

“But it looked like you,” she objected. “It must have had a choice to take your form and seek you out.”

His hands were cold within her grasp, and he shivered. “That was what Solas reasoned. But he was wrong.”

He paused, while she worked it out. Then: “It was a trick of Elgar’nan’s, to make you agree to the bargain.”

“You are correct. Solas – who the People now called Falon’Din – thought he could be the saviour of the people deep below the earth. He agreed to the bargain, and set up networks of agents to act against the Great One.”

“Why do you speak of him as if he were not you?” asked Virla, her brow furrowed in concentration. “And what was the price he had to pay? It sounds as if the bargain was all one way.”

“The price was Solas’ own life. He would lie in an enchanted sleep, deep below the ground. The Great One said the elves would be connected to his mind in dreaming, and that this would help them be immortal.”

“And the networks that you spoke of – you created them by reaching out to people in their dreams?”

“Yes. When Elgar’nan found out, it caused the war. The duel took place within the Fade, high upon a mountain. It was only when the champion, victorious, removed his golden helm, that Falon’Din realised his mistake.”

He waited for Virla to speak, then, when she didn’t, added, with hard-won calmness: “It looked like me. Even then, he thought that Elgar’nan had forced it to be there, to fight. He felt compassion.”

“But he’d lost the duel.”

“Elgar’nan played it magnificently. He changed into an elf and, in front of all those people, embraced the champion as a son. He said we had reached a truce in private, but had not wanted to deprive the crowds of their spectacle. He called the champion Falon’Din. He feted him. The agent who had fought and died was forgotten.”

“What happened to you?”

“I was Elgar’nan’s champion,” he explained, and she nodded, blankly fascinated, trying to absorb this all. “He’d told me after I fought for him that he would set me free. The crowds had heard the whispers that the Great Ones all took slaves. Elgar’nan prepared for this, and had hired actors to pretend as freed elf slaves, to spread word of his goodness. I was the only true slave that he did set free, and he trailed me mercilessly.”

A sharp tingle of fear ran up her back, as his aura shivered with remembered terror: “What did you do?”

“I had seen how eagerly and skillfully the other knight had fought. I learned to regret my part in duping Solas, and imprisoning him underground. I sought him out in the Fade. We became friends, exchanging memories and feelings until it was not quite clear where he began and where I started. And thus, when Elgar’nan came for his mind and stripped him of his memories, I had already secretly preserved them in myself.”

“Were you Dirthamen, then? The one who we remember as his twin, the Keeper of Secrets?”

“It is an anagram of Earth Mind in the dwarven tongue. I told him what I could remember of the prisoners of the pillars of the earth, the Great Ones. We did not know what forms they took, but knew their language from the spirits. I had no other form I knew but elven, based on Solas.”

“Calling yourself Solas to him might have been confusing,” agreed Virla. “When waking, you were Falon’Din?”

“I went to Mythal’s temple with my hair shaved, as a penance. My part of the truce. Once I had served my time, I helped found Arlathan. We honoured Elgar’nan, along with Mythal. Secretly, I worked against his rule.”

“And when they found out about that, they called you Fen’Harel?”

He nodded. “As you see, I have had many names. When we met in the Shrine to Fen’Harel, we had so little time. I knew I could not explain it all. The way the Dalish talk of the Dread Wolf, I thought you would despise me.”

“When you said that you sought to set your people free from slavery to would-be gods, did you mean elves?”

“The elven people thought so, and as the Evanuris’ rule grew harsher, over centuries, their need for slaves grew greater. They took them themselves, and nobles, aping them, took slaves as well, but marked them for the gods they worshipped. I never forgave myself that I had been the means for Elgar’nan to seize control above the earth as well as deep below. But in order to deceive him, I had to take slaves as well. I hated myself.”

“The blood of those who would not bow low filled lakes as wide as oceans,” she quoted. “You hoarded power.”

“Only in order to fight a greater evil. My twin’s body lay imprisoned deep below the Earth, and I longed to free him, free them all. But my rebellions failed. In desperation, I took Mythal into my confidence. She had always seemed the best of them: the most reasonable, the fairest. I told her I was Dirthamen, not Falon’Din. I told her that the real wealth lay deep below the Earth: a paradise where flowers bloomed. She formed an expedition.”

“I saw statues of her in the Deep Roads.”

“She found the Titan’s heart, and, at my urging, bound herself to it, to bring forth a fountain of pure love. A Wellspring, deep below the earth. For a time, it worked. The dwarves were freed. She created and gave me the orb to control the Fade. But Elgar’nan was too strong. Eventually it killed her. They destroyed her temples.”

“They?”

“The other Great Ones: Evanuris, Titans, dragons. With enough power you can take any form you wish. But very few can be trusted with that kind of power. And even fewer will relinquish it.”

She looked down at her chest, as if she could see through it. “I wonder that you let me take her soul.”

“You gave a part of that to Valta, of your own free will. _That_ is what cured the Blight. But that is a story for another night.” He sighed, and laid his head against the armchair, tears in his eyes. “What do you think?”

“I will try to deserve your trust,” said Virla, and put her arms around him as he sobbed into her shoulder.

  



	3. The sea endures

Virla’s arm was around his shoulders, his bald head pressed into her collarbone, her legs slung over the other arm of the chair, his whole body shuddering a grief she wondered if he’d ever truly allowed himself to feel.

There didn’t seem to be much reason to hurry him. She felt numb as well: like flotsam on a blood-strewn ocean, the sole survivor after the galleon sank. At least here, she was an elf and she could hold him.

“Solas,” she said, after many minutes had passed. “Solas. I am trying to… imagine, what it’s like for you.”

He stiffened, almost flinching, and sat back hurriedly, blinking away his own red eyes. No trace of misery remained. “ _Ir abelas, vhenan._ I am being selfish. I can feel you have a great many unasked questions.”

She sighed. “I hope that you do not see answering my questions as some kind of penance for your mistakes.”

“I do not dislike your questions,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “I do not want to hurt you with my pain. You have every right to ask them, and indeed once I am more… accustomed to the changes, it would be…”

He broke off, fighting with his emotions.

“It’s not selfish to express your feelings,” she insisted. “Even if you are to blame for… things, it’s normal to feel guilty, and regret mistakes. Are you worried you will corrupt yourself if you do not maintain a wall of pride?”

His grip on her hands tightened. “It is not that. You tore that wall away, unlocked my heart. We cured the Blight, a feat I did not think was possible. We still can save the People. And none of this seems real, except for you.”

“Will it be better when we wake?”

“You may be right. I had always found it easier in the Fade…” he murmured, looking around at the paintings on the walls, the white curtains blowing in the breeze, the tiled floor. Then he frowned. “Can you feel that?”

“Feel what?”

And then she felt it, and was wrenched back through the Veil, startlingly and painfully **awake**.

 

He woke almost as suddenly as she did, scrambling to his feet, a tiny fragile thing, but hers…

“You’re clutching,” he shouted, taking several steps backwards and almost falling into a steaming pool as she reared up and screamed. “Let your instincts guide you!”

“I thought you were here to do that,” she tried to say, but shot ice up at the ceiling instead. She could feel her tail lashing, unknown muscles clenching, and all of Frederic’s careful lessons vanished from her brain.

“Don’t shapeshift back!” cried Solas, and even in the dimness she could see that he was terrified. “Stay calm!”

Looking at him didn’t help. She focused on a statue of Andraste, tucked as silent commentary into a niche, and thought of all the dragons who had given birth. Vinsomer and Hivernal and…

A sharp pop of pain was followed by another and another, a whole clutch of eggs. She curled her tail around them, looking back to count, and breathed a satisfied flame of frost all over the cavern, not excluding Solas.

He had flung up his arm in time, and so there was a stripe of unmarked skin across his eyes and nose, not covered with powdery snow. When he lowered his arm, and raised an eyebrow at her, there was a rueful smile – and a smattering of frost – upon his lips. “I should listen to my own advice.”

She chuckled, giddy with relief, blowing the snow off him with a lazy breath. “I thought you would manage at least a barrier. How many of them are there?”

“Seven. Do you think that’s all of them?”

“How would I know?!”

He smiled. “Let me check. Tell me if you think there are more coming, then I’ll get out of the way.”

“I never figured you for a midwife, Solas.”

“I should tell you about the time I assisted the Queen of Antiva…” he began, devastatingly bland, trailing off as she shot him an azure-lidded glare. “Maybe later.”

“Dragon-flirter,” she retorted. “You be grim and fatalistic right now, or I’ll…”

Ignoring her, his hands pressed against her abdomen, small but firm. “Tell me if it’s painful. I think there’s at least one more in there. It is normal for them to come in waves. We probably have an hour.”

Indeed there was little pain at present. She rested her head on the ground, and snorted puffs of frost, watching them dissolve in the warmth. “You said they needed to be hatched in the Fade. How will we get them there?”

He had removed the wolf fur from around his neck, and wiped his hands on it as he walked back up to her head. His gilded armor steamed slightly, glistening where the frost had melted. “Through the eluvian at Skyhold.”  

“Are any of them…” _don’t say real…_ “new children. Our children? Elvhen?”

His expression was hard to read. “We will see when we get them into the Fade. I appreciate this is…”

“Weird. Yes. Very.” She took a breath. “Through the eluvian at Skyhold. That easy, right?”

“Thanks to Sera, and, presumably also Dagna, yes. You have many friends, _vhenan._ ”

“Will I be able to shift back to an elf after they are all clutched?”

He nodded, and looked across at the wagon. “It may make less of a grand entrance for your return to Skyhold, but I believe there are still horses tethered near the entrance, from when they brought the wagon here.”

It was packed with straw. “We can put the eggs in the wagon?” she hazarded.  

“And you, _vhenan._ I doubt you will be able to walk comfortably immediately, after… a month as a dragon.”

She blew frost over his boots, and he winced slightly. “You mean, after giving birth to dragon eggs.”

“Metal conducts cold as well as heat, _‘ma lath_. I would prefer it if you did not freeze me to the floor.”

“I have the right to ask questions, but not to hurt you?” she teased, but shifted her head so that her breath fell across another part of the floor, as he carefully carried each egg and placed it in the wagon.

“No-one has the right to hurt another,” he responded, the grim expression back. “Sadly, we live in a world where violence is normal. Most people would consider that they had the right to hurt me.”

“I heard voices in the _Vir Dirthara_ of people saying they would end you, for what you did in raising the Veil.”

“Saying may be a prelude to doing, but it also may not be. I did not cause this world to die!”

“How are you so sure it won’t? How did we cure the Blight?” His expression had been oddly triumphant, carrying the final egg, and the questions slipped out. Even if he was not ready for another deluge, she needed to know.

“A simple explanation?” he asked, and when she nodded, sat cross-legged on the floor, the wolf fur spread across his knees. “There are a few ways I can think of to describe it. I will tell you one of them now.”

“Yes, _hahren,_ ” she replied, enjoying the slight flush of irritated amusement that rose across his cheeks. Her poor attempts at humour seemed to help ground him in the present. Like a gull that focused on a tiny rockpool and a scuttling crab, rather than the endless ocean waves. _Keep him talking, Virla._

“My agents did not discover much about what happened when you went below the Deep Roads, three years ago. The Legion of the Dead are notoriously hard to infiltrate, and Leliana did well to weed out possible spies from the forces sent down there, and to impress upon them all that they must guard the Deep Roads’ secrets with their lives. But we did uncover that you had met Sha-Brytol.”

“I imagine it is hard to keep much from you, Solas. Surely you could just read Cullen’s dreams, or Leliana’s?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You are assuming that _that_ is what they choose to dream of. Most dreams are less…”

“Are you saying that most people’s dreams are dull?”

“The vividness with which you dream is rare. Even most mages do not dream with such impressive clarity. Those who are not mages tend to dream in simple terms, in images, not words. Cullen and Leliana presumably have never seen a Sha-Brytol. It’s not as if the words readily translate into an image I might see. Besides…”

“Besides?”

His voice was quiet. “I couldn’t bear to come too close to Skyhold, and I wouldn’t let the Dreamers in my ranks get anywhere near you.”

“You were jealous of them?” Her heart thumped painfully, somewhere far away, as she contemplated the possibility that, after all, this Solas might still envy. Might still _be_ Envy. She had been duped before.

He looked sad. “No, _vhenan._ I love you. Back then, I wished that you’d forget me. I wished you would find somebody else, who would take care of you, who’d give you nights of pleasure, days of joy. That would have strengthened my resolve to carry out my plans. I did not think it was wise if that somebody was my agent.”

“But you did send agents into the Inquisition.”

“Those I judged would be of less interest to you.”

She breathed frost closer to his feet, and he absently sketched a circle in it with his hand. “I have a type, do I?”

“Maybe? I thought I knew you well enough to guess some preferences. I never said it was a good plan.”

“It was thoughtful of you, Solas.” She blinked. “Wait. We were talking about Sha-Brytol. The Blight.”

“ **I** was, _da’len._ You were… distracting me.”

“I suspect this will become a feature of our conversations,” she murmured, then, at his gesture, fell silent.

“The Sha-Brytol are dwarves who let themselves be taken over by the Titan when it wishes. It calls them and they come; their blood infused with lyrium much like their weapons. Dwarves have caste tattoos that are a memory of this. Much like Dalish vallaslin are inert markings reflecting vallaslin that once were active magic.”

“A geas?”

“Indeed. Except… they were not all inert. Abelas’, for example. The first of my People do not die so easily.”

It made her skin crawl, to think of it. “What makes the vallaslin active?”

“Faith, primarily. Belief is a powerful force, underpinning all magic. Blood magic undermines ones’ own beliefs, replacing your desires and goals with another’s will. There are risks in drinking true dragon blood: whether you realise it or not, your will has been subjected to their goals, through increase of rage and strength.”

“I once drank maraas-lok,” she remembered. “You told Bull he had to water it down for me.”

“Yes,” he sighed. “Qunari are elves who were transformed by drinking too much dragon blood. An experiment that I do not propose to dwell on now. The Grey Warden Joining ritual involves ingesting a mixture of lyrium, a drop of Archdemon blood, and darkspawn blood. Only the strongest-willed individuals can tolerate the mixture.”

“Lyrium is Titan’s blood,” she said. “The ritual links the Wardens to the hive mind of the darkspawn, because…”

“How does each of the Archdemons control the darkspawn?” he asked. “That is the key question.”

“Who was the fresco writer?” she asked.

“I was,” he answered, looking at his hands upon the wolf fur, then up to meet her gaze.

“You…” she breathed. It sounded more like a hiss. “Were you lying, before, when you said it wasn’t?”

“No. I did not lie. When Valta sealed me in this body – this body that lay undisturbed and underground for ten thousand years – it brought me back the memories of this Solas too. Not all of them.”

“I’m confused. So this body was the one that made the deal with the Titan? The original Solas?”

“I believe so. The body that you knew before… that body lay in Solasan until I woke a year before we met. It was taken by the Nightmare, by the envy demon, flew as Lusacan; your forces killed it. That released my spirit.”

“It said it was Elgar’nan. Do you have his memories as well? Would you know that if you didn’t?”

“It was what was left of Elgar’nan. Dirthamen was what was left of Elgar’nan. The envy demon had his body.”

“But you are in Falon’Din’s body now? You are the same person?”

“It is not a simple matter to define a person,” he said, then as she rolled her eyes. “Yes. I am the same person.”

“I am sorry I find this hard to understand,” she sighed. “You are a Titan. A dragon. A rebel god. _Emma vhenan._ ”

His eyes shone, and he reached out a hand to stroke the scales of her cheek. “ _Ar lath, ‘ma vhenan._ You are trying to understand. That’s all I can ask of you. Of anyone. You are a rare spirit, and wise. I’ve told you that.”

“So what about the Blights? Why cause such misery?”

“The original darkspawn were beings that have lost their souls, like a Sha-Brytol warrior cut off suddenly from the Titan without a chance to restore its mind, its personality. All it retains is rage and strength, the urge to kill.”

“But Corypheus was a darkspawn. He could think, and plan.”

He was still close, his voice a dark murmur. “Compare Cole’s experience to that of a spirit drawn across the Veil against its will. Corypheus chose to let the darkness enter him, to give his life in service to Dumat.”

“Who was Dumat?”

“I was not always good,” he sighed. “Elgar’nan was rage and vengeance. His greatest weakness and his saving grace was pride: the light of Sun within him, his creative force. In the end his pride tore him apart.”

“He created you,” she murmured. “Valta said your body was created by a Titan. But no, that’s…”

“Perhaps she was perceiving all the work that had been done – by Elgar’nan and Mythal – to keep my body living. Before she died, before the Veil, Mythal freed the dwarves – Elgar’nan’s slaves, his Sha-Brytol. To give them personalities, we bound them to the spirits of the rock; with my blood, that they might shape the Fade.”

“That journal in the Deep Roads: Mythal gave them dreams. _Da’durgen’lin, banal malas elgara._ ”

“When Mythal was killed,” he continued, frowning, “the dwarves despaired, were furious. They’d worshipped her. They’d recreated Titans for themselves, linking themselves with lyrium. They would shatter the Earth.”

“So you created the Veil. To stop them dreaming, weaken their ability to affect reality.”

“I knew it would create some darkspawn, just as it would shatter Elvhenan. But every alternative was worse. Their belief made Mythal’s death a disease of stone, of matter. We sealed the Deep Roads, hoping to contain it.”

“But not all of the dwarves were darkspawn. Did you leave them to their fate? And what about the elves?”

He moved away, and stood before her, hands behind his back, his face a mask. “I rescued those I could. You judged the mayor of Crestwood, exiled him from his lands. How do you think I judged myself? I could not die. I could not cut myself off from the Fade, or all the immortal elvhen would be blighted. I had to keep on going.”

She was about to answer, ask him why and what and how, and how her giving Valta power had stopped the disease, when another violent surge of pain bloomed. She cried out: “Get away! More eggs!”

This time there were only two. He carried them to the wagon before he checked her over, a princely midwife.

“I think that’s all,” he said, after a few minutes. “Do you want to shift back now? Do you trust me?”

  



	4. The moon endures

She’d delayed it for a further hour. Time to understand what Solas had experienced, when he was absent from this world with Caritas; to begin to appreciate the magnitude of his decisions, and how he’d made it back to her. Time to be convinced the world was safe from Blight; the Nightmare dead; that he was not a demon. Time to believe that all the eggs had clutched: all nine of them. Time to believe it would be safe for her to shift back.

Solas had seated himself upon the ground, gauntlets off, and at first he’d answered her many questions patiently. But she could sense his desire to get the eggs to safety. Virla turned her head to indicate the eggs packed in the wagon. With dragon sight she could see all angles: every stone and pool and geyser in the cavern.

“I know that we should go soon,” she began, her mind on the eggs. “May I ask one more thing?”

Solas nodded and waited for her to put the question into words. His breathing was almost as slow and deep as if he were about to meditate. She was not fooled: his calmness was a learnt one. Maybe he could teach her it.

Virla lifted up her huge dragon’s head, and spoke through sharpened ivory teeth. “I want to know who I am, Solas,” she said. “Am I Mythal? Will I become her? Why do people see me as Andraste in their dreams, or as Sylaise? I spoke in dwarven dialect to Valta. We speak in Draconic. The Archon saw me as Razikale, and Morrigan saw me as her mother! Whose are the voices that I hear? If I become an elf once more, will I still be me?”

Her voice rang around the cavern, hissing and shrieking. It was hard to concentrate on the elf who sat at her feet, close enough for her claws to tear him apart should she wish. She reminded herself she did not wish that.

“You are Virla first,” said Solas, his voice a quiet stone dropping into swirling waters. “Never forget that.”

“Just as you were Solas first, and Fen’Harel came later?”

“Precisely. The effects you describe, as you have no doubt guessed, all came from the soul you took from the great eluvian. Those you met in dreams would have seen the power of the soul, and their minds would have perceived you according to their own beliefs. Since you shared its power with Valta, this effect will be lessened.”

She nodded, having come to much the same conclusions herself. “But why Sylaise, not Mythal?”

“Why do you expect people who have never met you before to have any insight into your true self? You have seen enough evidence of ignorance in this world.” He sighed. “It is rare that anyone truly understands another.”

“I take your point. But still, the dragon Hissrassulin called me Sullaisah. Sky-gift. Sylaise.”

He frowned. “Do you still think Sylaise was the literal daughter of Mythal and Elgar’nan? Our pantheon is not so simple as your Dalish tales portrayed it, _vhenan_. From what you know of me, you know that.”

Virla tossed her head. “I saw Sylaise’s mosaic in the Temple of Mythal. The Dalish did not make her up!”

“I did not say they had,” said Solas, adding: “The truth of Sylaise is not to be found by staring at a mosaic.”

“As you said when we saw the statue of Fen’Harel. But Valta said that every myth contains a kernel of truth.”

Solas stood up, and began to pace slowly around the cavern: careful steps on stone floors, in between the geyser pools. Condensation dripped off his armour, glistening in the dim light that filtered in from the surface above them; and sweat off his brow. Virla wondered if he was thinking about himself again, or her.

After a minute of silence, he turned to look up at her. “On whether every myth contains a kernel of truth… would you say the same of **all** the rumours told of you as Herald of Andraste, of every page of Varric’s book?”

Her nostrils flared in amusement, momentarily distracted from the argument. “You read that? When?”

The tips of his ears were tinged pink, and he acknowledged the hit with a weary smile. “My agents obtained a copy of the manuscript, before it was bound. It was important for me to know how I had been portrayed in it. Varric… treated me better than I had expected.”

“He was your friend, Solas. Yours, and mine.”

Solas pinched the bridge of his nose, as if the thought hurt him. “The Dalish believe that Sylaise’s way is the way of peace, and that she taught them much. You have brought them peace already. From Corypheus… and…”

He could not finish the sentence, turning away from her to stare at the statue of Andraste in its niche. It was brought in upon her anew how recent the fight against the false god Lusacan had been, that she’d seen the spirit of the man who stood here now rise up from its rotting body: arise, be cleansed, return.

She knew what he had not said, that she had saved the world from him as well, and hastened to reassure him. He was _not_ that dragon, not a demon. “Solas, without you we would not have defeated Corypheus. I have never warred with you. You changed your own mind, saw that it was possible. How could **I** have done that?”

His voice cracked as it shaped the harsh Draconic sounds in response; she could hear he was fighting to stay calm. “You underestimate yourself. _Vhenan_ , we h… have talked for hours. Please can we get the eggs to safety?”

“Yes. I should transform back.”

The words were easy to say, now that she was determined to do it, but she had been a dragon for a month. How had she transformed back, that first and only time? A pulse of silver light, she’d wanted to be on safe ground again. But now, she was accustomed to this form. Morrigan’s instructions were hard to remember. Returning from a raven, the change was to something greater. This was… giving up something, reducing oneself… and…

“Is there a problem?”

Solas was looking up at her, and she decided not to be proud about the issue. “Um. I’m worried that I won’t fit back into an elven body. Does that sound silly?”

“The flesh and the mind are inseparable,” said Solas, as if he had said it many times before in other lives: “Push the parts that don’t fit into the Fade. They will return when you need them.”

She closed her eyes, and tried to imagine herself a red-haired elf, clad in the gilded armour she’d first donned in Aratishan when they had left a month ago. Nothing seemed to happen. “I… can’t do this,” she said, with a sigh.

He chuckled, and she felt a hand clasp hers, interlocking… fingers.

_Oh._

She opened her eyes to find she only had one gauntlet on, it seemed: the right one. Her other hand was held.

“ _Sulahn’nehn_ , _vhenan’ara_ ,” he whispered,  as she lifted her chin up. Her heart stuttered wildly, as she felt anew the wild attraction of their auras intermingling. Virla took a hasty breath through suddenly tiny lips and nostrils.

“I always did prefer you with red hair,” continued Solas, a new warmth in his eyes.

“Not… scales?” she asked, in a small voice, gripping his hand tightly. This was real, it was real!

His aura wrapped around her own, weighty and alive, like two dragons compressed to elvhen size, the Veil a song around them. If she looked into the Fade she could see behind her, all around, as if dragonsight somehow remained and past and future were tangible realities, no longer inaccessible. The sensation made her dizzy.

“Definitely not scales,” said Solas, his lips curving upwards as he lifted her hand to them, to kiss it gently.

Though she had slept in his arms countless times, though he had kissed her after waking a month ago, no longer tranquil, she’d never seen such joy in his eyes, such unbounded love. It almost scared her: to see him not bowed down by cares, to see him… _happy_.

He lowered her hand, still holding it in a firm grasp, his flesh warm to the touch, tingling with magic. She had the strongest desire to pull him in to her, to kiss him, feel his hands upon her legs and back and breasts, and wondered if he felt the same. This cavern was not… private, but there was no doubt they were alone, that there would be nobody else to see her come undone, to slake his need. With both hands, now, and newfound joy.

“Solas,” she began, almost whispering, but he had let her hand go, and turned away to inspect the eggs. Her cheeks flushed red, unseen by him. Of course they couldn’t. Not here, not while the eggs were still not safe.

Virla walked across, on legs that felt as thin and brittle as witherstalk, to stand beside her lover and the wagon. She stared at it. Her eggs, _their_ future? They were large. She ran her hand over the smooth marbled surface of the nearest egg, feeling the heat of magic pouring off it, imagining its weight. It was disorientating, strange, bizarre, to know that she had carried all of these within her body.

“I can’t believe that these were all inside me,” said Virla, putting the thought into words.

“Don’t think about it,” said Solas. “Once we have them safely stored, we will have time to plan.”

“We need a plan to get us into Skyhold, then.”

“Do you have one, Inquisitor?”

She wished he’d use _vhenan_ instead. “Solas, I disbanded the Inquisition. That title is no longer valid.”

“Ameridan is still referred to as Inquisitor, even now,” said Solas, lightly. “But it is no matter. I will not use the title if you dislike it. And I believe I have a plan, if you do not. Whom did you leave in charge of Skyhold?”

“Baron Desjardins, and Lace Harding, and the Keeper of my clan, Hawen.”

“Ah, yes… Hawen.” His eyes flickered closed for a moment. “What is his view on our relationship?”

“I never told him. Though when I left for Tevinter, there were eight who knew that you were Fen’Harel, and that included Harding. I have no idea how close that secret has been kept. It is entirely possible he knows.”

He did not respond directly, though she suspected that he was hiding some amusement. Instead, he said, still smiling: “I am glad you kept the castle. Maybe there will be an opportunity to paint the eighth _sa’vunin_.”

She shivered, remembering how desolate she had felt, working below that fresco of the wolf slaying the dragon.

“I always enjoyed watching you paint,” she admitted. “But perhaps we should retain it as it is, to remind us that the world will never be perfect. A warning against too much pride, perhaps.”

He shook his head. “I need no reminder, but perhaps you are wise. I am sorry that it caused you pain, _vhenan_.”

Virla shrugged. “You were right, I think. I could not have thought of you as Fen’Harel and had you in my confidence back then, before we killed Corypheus. I assume that he is truly dead, in this world?”

His face was sombre. “Now the Blight is gone, he cannot pass back this way… or at least, not without consent.”

“Whose consent?”

“He is human – therefore it would require both our consents and Valta’s. I think it unlikely either of you would give such consent lightly. Not without significant repentance on his part.”

She felt dizzy again. “We have the power to return dead souls to life?”

“It is also the power _not_ to do so. Action is…”

“…not always better than inaction,” she repeated, for what felt like the hundredth time. Her hands felt clammy, and suddenly the power in them was terrifying. She grabbed his arm. “Solas, I don’t know if I can do this!”

“No-one who wanted that power should have it,” was his only answer. “You should not tell anyone of this. I know that you can be discreet. Do not be tempted to divulge it lightly.”

“I never told anyone you were Fen’Harel, not until you… took my arm.” She stared down at her fingers.

“I know,” he said. “You have always impressed me, _vhenan._ For now, let us focus on today. We need a plan.”

Virla nodded, leaning on the wagon while the dizziness faded. “I don’t know what to expect in Skyhold, and whether anyone will trust me. Is there a way that we can get the eggs to safety first, before we talk to anyone?”

“Yes, I think so. I believe it will take a couple of hours to reach Skyhold, if the horses are still there.”

****

The horses were still there, tethered and in reach of hay and water, and both Solas and Virla breathed a sigh of relief to see them, and the rations saved within their saddlebags. Solas even joked that he would have had to become a horse himself to pull it, as he lifted Virla into the main part of the wagon, and sat himself on the narrow driving seat to use the reins. The path took them through thick drifts of snow, but Solas knew spells that made the ride much smoother – and, she suspected, faster – than it would have been for ordinary travellers.

It would have been much faster had they flown as dragons, but that was far too risky. Besides, Virla was glad to be an elf once more, to be a normal size, with normal hunger. She found the eggs gave off a pleasant warmth, enough not to need any wards or magic. She listened to Solas’ tales of ravens, bears and wolves, watched his careful hands upon the reins, admired his strength, and looked towards the future with excitement.

Virla realised she felt as she had felt after the battle with Corypheus: she had not thought to be alive, and though her body ached with weariness, exhilaration filled her mind: a joy that she had won. That _they_ had won.

It was nearer three hours by the time they sighted Skyhold, and the sun was setting, casting a reddish glow across the snow. This time, she was bringing Solas home as well, and the thought brought a smile to her lips.

“What was the plan again?” she asked, with a sleepy yawn.

“We bring the wagon up to the window of the room where the eluvian resides. It will take some magic, but I can disable the wards around that area, and ensure that we are not perceived. We can cut through the window and the bars. I think it likely that the guards will not be watching closely, given the recent… victory in battle.”

He pressed his hand to his head, as if disturbed by the memory. “Does it hurt to remember?” asked Virla.

“It was a painful death,” said Solas, spurring the horses on again. He didn’t turn around, but Virla could see his shoulders were squared, his muscles taut. “But, as I said, there was no alternative. That body had to die.”

It was strange to think about, that this was not _his_ body, yet it was. She thrust the thought away, saying instead: “The foot of that window is around twelve feet above the snowline. From what I remember.”

“It will not be hard to create a ramp of snow. The iron window bars will melt in fire, and the glass can be cut.”

“What with?”

At that, he did at last look back over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. Pain still lingered in his eyes, but there was amusement there as well once more. “With diamond, of course. The hardest stone.”

“But we don’t have a diamond. Where are you planning to get one?”

He turned back to watch the path. They were emerging from a ravine, out into the open. “If you search in the corner just behind me, to my left, you will find a few small stones. Place one beside me on the seat.”

Virla searched around the eggs, and found the stones as he had said. She put a rough grey stone on the wooden ledge beside him, and waited. “It’s beside you, Solas. Now what?”

She felt a pulse of power from the Fade, narrowly directed, and stared in wonder. The grey stone had vanished, and in its place was a large, finely-cut diamond, with a sharpened edge. “ _Fenedhis!_ ” she exclaimed.

“If you like diamonds, there’s more where that came from,” he said, dryly. “Remember that the Deep Roads were _created_ , that the Earth was given form. I would be grateful if you did not tell Varric about… these abilities of mine. The temptation to call in favours might be great indeed. I would prefer that he remained my friend.”

“I did not know this magic was possible,” she said, picking up the diamond. It reflected red from the embers of the dying sun, and for a moment she thought she saw six eyes that gleamed in it, before they vanished. Then to the east, the moon – _their_ moon, the Silver City – shone bright and full. The diamond glowed white. The spirits sang.

They both looked at up at the moon. Solas leant back, one hand taking hers, the other still holding the reins. His blue eyes sparkled with intent. “I can make the earth move for you,” he said, “…should you will it, _vhenan._ ”

“Sweet talker,” said Virla, laughing shyly up at him. She knelt up to gently kiss his cheek. “Let’s see, shall we?”

  



End file.
